Women CineMakers, Special Edition, vol 5

or sculpture, I always consider sound carefully through my creative process. Image is very direct, usually what you see is what you get; as we juxtapose multiple images, we begin to build structure and logic and tell a story based on these. In my opinion, sound is the opposite. Sound is indirect which creates psychological space for viewers to imagine different images. Sometimes I even think sound brings images to life, it brings motion to images and can help focus our attention within the images. The marriage between sound and image can complete a work of art.

I was very lucky to work with my friend Shih-Chieh Lin on the sound for this film. He is also a very talented filmmaker, working on documentaries and experimental film. He understands how sound can strengthen the imagery in films.

The sound for The Islands is basically the first version.

Your work explores the complexity of multicultural identity from a contemporary perspective: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in.

It depends on the political system you’re living under": what could be in your opinion the role of artists in our unstable contemporary age?

I think what artists can do is to create pure and honest work that portrays real life. By this I mean must live in the present and must live honestly; for me, that means to live at a human pace.

The biggest difference between our generation and the previous generations is that the overwhelming presence of technology controls most of our judgements and gradually dominates the way we perceive the world. It changes the pace of our lives tremendously. We start to ignore the details of life and eventually lose our sense of self.